BMT
Kevin Meador
English 101 – 125
September 15th 2010
Basic Military Training
I would like to tell you a little about my experience at basic military training. In December 2009 after it was apparent to me I wasn’t going to make it into WVU’s nursing school I decided to Join the Air National Guard to pay for my own college and have some extra money while in school. Nine Months later they finally sent me to Lackland Air Force Base, Texas for BMT.
Your first taste of basic is at the airport where they in process you and put you own a bus. The bus ride is eerily quiet; I arrived at night so you couldn’t see much on the way there. I’ve been to Texas before though; it’s very flat, hot, and dry. When you get to Lackland you get off the bus to do more in processing, you’re issued a few things such as a rain coat and a satchel and other odds and ends. By the time we got to our dorm it was already midnight. Here we stood under the patio of our “dormitory” (don’t let the name fool you) in our first formation, while five training instructors circled around us screaming various information at us. We where then taken upstairs and told to run and point at a bunk, then that was your bed. We were rushed through shaving while being yelled at (the idea is for you to cut yourself), then showers and after that put in bed.
That night there was lots of nervous chatter, no matter how ready you thought you were the same thought on everyone’s mind was, “What the fuck have I gotten myself into?”. The entirety of our first week was spent marching all over the base getting things done like haircuts and uniform issue. My most distinct memory from the first week is a six foot tall black man getting screamed at and then preceding to pee his pants.
The first words out of your mouth at all times when talking to anyone other than a fellow trainee was “Sir Trainee Meador reports as ordered, “(insert message here)”. We had two MTI’s (military training instructors) Technical Sgt. Otero and Staff Sgt. Veil. TSgt. Otero was the good cop, SSgt Veil was the bad cop. You avoided talking to your MTI’s at all cost but sometimes you had to ask a question, and when you did you always went to TSgt Otero.
On Friday at the end of the first week of training you got your immunizations, including penicillin shot in the butt that hurt a lot, and made it very sore. Conveniently enough the next day was the first day they were allowed to start punishing us with Physical Training. Before lunch that day SSgt. Veil took us down under the patio and had us doing what the Air Force call’s 20-20-20’s twenty seconds of push-ups, flutter kicks, and squat thrusts respectively.
Technically, he was only supposed to make us be able to do one set at a time this early in training. What he would do is as soon as we would switch from say flutter kicks to squat thrusts he would say, “Trainee Smith was to slow back on your faces, we can play this game all day”. We switched between exercises for over thirty minutes. This was part of the mind game to make you all hate each other when you needed to be working together.
The MTI’s had some trainees they just loved to hate and decided to turn the whole group against. If you’ve seen Full Metal Jacket then you might remember Private Pyle. There is a Pvt. Pyle in every flight. In my flight his name was Trainee Crouch, normally pronounced Trainee Crotch. The MTI’s hated this kid so bad that he wasn’t allowed to talk except to them. Every time this kid did the slightest thing wrong the MTI’s would make him count while we did push-ups to make us hate him to.
Fast forward two weeks into training and my Training Instructor comes in first thing in the morning to find the trash can without a liner in it. He wakes us up by throwing the trashcan down the center of the bay screaming “So this is how you want to start the day? get on your fucking faces you little shits”. Fifty pushups later we had about only five minutes to Pee, and get dressed and lined up for Physical Training.
Every day at basic you wake up at 04:45 you have ten minutes for fifty men to use 8 toilets, change, and get lined up to go to pt. PT rotated between Cardio (thirty minutes of running) and mixed calisthenics every other day. After PT you normally went to breakfast, the breakfast at Lackland was amazing. The downside was the four weeks you where lucky if you had three minutes per meal to eat. The whole time you’re eating you also have someone in your face screaming at you, and the worst part is if you look up from your food your done eating and have to dump your tray.
Mornings where the worst part of the day because you had a very small window of time to get a lot done before you started training for that day. After breakfast you got the joy of morning details. My detail was bathroom crew; specifically in the bathroom I cleaned the drying room. The room fifty naked men stand around in after they shower. I had to clean it spotless, every hair (and we didn’t have any on our heads) out of the cracks.
Details were meticulous; hallway crew had to keep the hallway spotless. The utility closet crew had to keep the cleaning equipment spotless. If somebody used the restroom and peed on the floor or left the seat down the whole restroom crew would be in trouble, It was the same for anybody else’s detail, no matter who messed it up. It taught you to work together, even though I didn’t have to worry about the hallway I wouldn’t leave trash in it because I wouldn’t want someone peeing on the wall.
During the day we did various things from learning how to manage your personal finances to learning the parts of an M-16. We spent time in the classroom and if appropriate it was accompanied by hands on training. We spent one week learning base defense in the classroom in the morning then in the afternoon we would go apply it in the field.
The evenings where not as hectic as the mornings normally, your MTI would leave after dinner then the Dorm Chief (a trainee) would be in charge. You would take showers, do details, and get your personal area squared away. Lights out was at 2200 but nobody ever fell asleep then. You normally still had some socks to roll or something and if you wanted to write a letter home or to your girlfriend this was typically your only time to get this accomplished.
That was one of the hardest parts of BMT, I didn’t get to call anybody for three weeks, didn’t get to send out my first letter tell two weeks in. The isolationism of it, not seeing and barely talking to anybody you knew for two months. It makes you realize how much you depend upon your family and close friend. Stressful hard times in your life is when you need them most but I guess in Afghanistan I can’t go over to Mom and Dad’s for dinner after a rough day.
Sunday was your one day of the week you got to relax just a little. The military is legally obliged to give you two hours of religious worship time a week. It was a hour in that pew where nobody was screaming at you, you weren’t folding your shirt in some retarded manor, or scrubbing the floor. Most Sundays your MTI wouldn’t show up at all, you would just spend the day doing laundry, getting all the little things in the dorm perfect you didn’t have time for the rest of the week. You also normally had time during the day to read, write, and mail letters. You always had to be on your guard though; MTI’s are tricky and sometimes would pop in the fire escape to check on us.
During the fifth week of training we went out into the field for what was called B.E.A.S.T (Battlefield Expeditionary Airmen Skills Training). This was a mock deployment to a ficticous country that was strangely familiar in description to Afghanistan. During this week we lived in tents inside a fenced compound. Everywhere you went you had to wear a thirty pound flack-jacket, a Kevlar helmet, and a 20 pound bag containing your chemical warfare outfit. At any given time a alarm could blast and unless you where on guard duty you had to run to the bunker and put on your chemical warfare outfit.
Anytime during the middle of the night you had to use the bathroom you had to put on your flak jacket and helmet, then find a battle buddy then walk the half mile to the bathroom. I saw two men pee themselves trying to get ready in time in my tent alone. During this week we also went on a IED tactical march where we marched along a path looking for potential IEDS.
After we got back from B.E.A.S.T the rest of training went by quickly. On Thursday of your last week of at Lackland Air Force base, you go through coin ceremony. You get promoted from Trainee to Airman and receive a coin marking the occasion. This is one of the proudest days in any person’s life who goes through air force basic training.
Your last weekend there before you leave to go to Technical School (military version of college) your parent’s get to take you out during the day to do whatever you want around San Antonio. You wouldn’t believe how good that first Dr. Pepper is and how delicious your first double cheeseburger is. At the end of it all you made it through eight and a half weeks of hell without any of the comforts you would normally enjoy in the civilian world (TV, alcohol, caffeine, women, etc.) You can look back and think I made it through that so I just need to suck it up and deal with my five hours of homework or whatever it is making you think your life sucks that particular day.
My freshman year at WVU I skipped my first morning class a lot because I thought I could make A while missing it a lot. Now I never skip class unless I’m sick because it’s my job, it’s my duty. I woke up before 0500 for eight weeks; I can get up for a 0900 class. Throughout the course of the day if there’s something you wanted to get done but didn’t its not that you didn’t have time for it is that you didn’t make time for it. The thing’s I’ve learned from being in the Air Guard hopefully can get me through college this time around.
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